Tatjana Vendrig, Fabian Vendrig, John M. Stienen Serbian soldiers of World War I who died in the Netherlands BrusselBerlijnPekingMontevideoAbuDhabiTelAvivLondenIstanboelAlmatyBangkokHelsinkiSanJoséParamariboAnkaraSaoPauloPretoriaBangkokMilaanBamakoHoustonHa Tatjana Vendrig, Fabian Vendrig, John M. Stienen Serbian soldiers of World War I who died in the Netherlands Драга Лепа, ако не добијеш скоро моја Dear Lepa, if you don’t get my letters писма, знај да нисам више жив. Јер soon, you have to know that I am not волијем и умрети сада него доцније alive anymore. Because I’d rather die слеп ићи по свету. Ћорав човек не than wander around like a blind person. ради у руднику. Ако се избавим одавде A blind man doesn’t work in the mine. If јавићу ти. Само ми је жао што још I escape from here, I will inform you. My нисам добио слику дечију и твоју, да only regret is that I still haven’t got the бих могао видети и Ружицу. children’s and your photo, so that I could also see Ružica. Excerpt from a letter from Đorđe Vukosavljević (born in Kragujevac, Serbia) who was a non- commissioned officer in the Serbian army. The letter was written on 30th June 1918 in Soltau (Germany). Đorđe died on 22nd January 1919 in Nieuw-Milligen (the Netherlands). 6 Foreword Dear reader, After the publications about Jenny Merkus, Jacob Colyer and the diary of Arius van Tienhoven, this brochure completes a series on Dutch-Serbian relations over the past century. A team of voluntary researchers has documented the identities of 91 Serbian soldiers who died in the Netherlands during or as a consequence of the First World War. Supported by various letters, photos, diaries, but also by getting in close contact with the family members of the victims, this brochure captures the whole story. Not only does this brochure tell us the personal stories of the lives of the Serbian soldiers who died during the ‘Great War’, it also presents insights into its outbreak and the following shifts in frontlines, and offers a humanitarian law perspective. In addition, this research maps the present-day monuments for Serbian soldiers in several municipalities in the Netherlands. The authors John M. Stienen, Tatjana Vendrig and Fabian Vendrig have successfully managed to combine the facts of the war with personal stories of the Serbian soldiers who expressed their experiences through their diaries. As the Netherlands and Serbia continue to strengthen our good relations and move forward to a shared future, we do so on the basis of a shared history. In this context, the contribution of this remembrance brochure in honor of the fallen soldiers is highly valuable. The Embassy wishes to foster awareness of this history in Serbia with the publication of this booklet. I hope you will enjoy this unique research of shared Dutch-Serbian history as much as I have. Henk van den Dool Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Republic of Serbia 7 8 Introduction In a corner of the Dutch Reformed Cemetery in Garderen, on the edge of the forested area of the Veluwe region in the Netherlands, stands a monument to the memory of Serbs who died of the Spanish flu in 1919, in the aftermath of World War I. The monument contains 29 names of soldiers who died in Garderen, 21 soldiers who died in Nijmegen and 14 who died in Enschede, but whose coffins, as the authors discovered in 2012, are no longer there. The authors are two Dutchmen and a Serb, and they were determined to find out what happened to those Serbian soldiers who had died in the Netherlands, which was a neutral country during the First World War. They wanted to know how they arrived in the Netherlands, where their remains are now and, if possible, to find the families of those 64 Serbian First World War soldiers. After researching the Dutch municipal archives, they discovered that there were not only 64 Serbian soldiers who had died in three municipalities in the Netherlands, but rather 91 who had died in nine different towns. With help of the Serbian community in Rotterdam and Utrecht, the Serbian embassies in The Hague and Prague, and various other persons and sources in the Netherlands and Serbia, they found more answers to their questions. When they contacted the first descendants of some of those 91 soldiers, more questions arose, but more information also became available. This brochure is the result of the research of the authors, who started to form the full picture of this specific chapter in the history of Dutch-Serbian relations, a century ago. The different phases are described: the legal aspects and the outbreak of the war, the atrocities in the prisoner-of-war camps, the repatriation of Serbian soldiers via the Netherlands, their death and exhumation. The brochure ends with a description of the current state of the monument in Garderen and the mausoleum where most of the Serbs who died in the Netherlands found their resting place, while it also includes some stories of the families that were uncovered by the authors. However, it mostly tells the story of the 91 Serbian soldiers from World War I who died in the Netherlands and never made it home. 9 Prisoners of war The peace movement that started after Solferino and led to the First Geneva Convention, which led to the founding of the Red Cross, was also firmly rooted in The Hague towards the end of the 19th century. During the Conventions of The Hague of 1899 and 1907, a legal framework was established to deal with disarmament, the laws of war and war crimes. This included rules aimed at regulating the conduct of neutral countries in the case of war on land. Little did the Netherlands know that the rules it had helped to create would become applicable within a decade of being promulgated. When Belgium was attacked by Germany in 1914, neutral Netherlands was surrounded by warring nations. As a result of the fall of Antwerp, almost a million Belgians sought refuge in the Netherlands, among them 30,000 soldiers.1 The official policy was to repatriate the civilians as soon as possible, but the military had to be disarmed and interned until the end of the hostilities, in line with the Hague Convention No. V of 1907. At the beginning of 1917, the government took measures to reduce smuggling at the border with Germany. It was decided that the country could only be reached via official checkpoints or border railway stations. On this occasion, the various ministries confirmed the arrangement they had made regarding different groups of foreigners who would not be sent back for reasons of human rights: escaped prisoners of war, civilians who had escaped from internment camps, deserters, or any other person whose extradition would result in physical danger.2 Unlike active service soldiers, who needed to be disarmed and interned when reaching the border, escaped prisoners of war were free to move and leave the country in the direction they desired – they would usually leave via the port of Rotterdam with the help of the consul of their country. This meant that Dutch involvement was rather limited – delousing, feeding and organising transport to Rotterdam.3 Atrocities and prisoner-of-war camps The First World War started with the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia on 28th July 1914. This declaration of war came as a result of 1 Minister of the Interior Cort van der Linden’s response to the interpellation of MP dr. E.J. Beumer (ARP, for Kampen district), Handelingen Tweede Kamer (Proceedings of the Lower House of Parliament) 1917-1918, 16th April 1918, p. 2278 2 Undated note verbale in Nationaal Archief, Den Haag, Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken: Volksgezondheid en Arm- wezen, nummer toegang 2.04.54, inventarisnummer 137. 3 Brugmans, p. 70 10 several events, which reached their climax with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria, in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. The Austro-Hungarian forces began shelling Belgrade, the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia, on the night of 29th July 1914. Millions of men were dragged into the war, while rough estimates suggest that some 18 million people died (11 million soldiers and seven million civilians). It is estimated that the Kingdom of Serbia alone lost more than 1.1 million inhabitants during the war (both army and civilian losses), which represented over 26% of its then total population and 58% of its adult male population.4 At the battle of Cer (mid-August 1914), the Serbian army initially halted the Austrian invasion, launched two weeks after the first shelling. Towards the end of 1914, following the battles of Drina and Kolubara, the loss of life had already become considerable, though no changes to borders had taken place. After 10 months of relative silence, a full scale attack was launched in the first week of October 1915 by the Austro-Hungarians and Germans from the north, followed by a Bulgarian invasion from the east and southeast a week later, which caused the Serbian position to become untenable. The Bulgarian offensive cut the Serbs off from their allies on the Salonica5 Front and prompted the Serbian Army’s retreat via Albania and Montenegro to the island of Corfu. As a result of this offensive and the subsequent occupation of Serbia by the Central Powers, tens of thousands of Serbian soldiers were taken as prisoners of war.6 All of the Serbian soldiers who arrived in the Netherlands were held in Austro- Hungarian and German prisoner-of-war camps. It is known where some of the 91 soldiers were held as PoWs thanks to the digitalised archives of the International Red Cross.7 For example, it is stated on the International Red Cross card of Miloš Gavrović that he was born in Miločaj in 1893 and that he was made a prisoner of war on 14th November 1915 in Kruševac.